The Worst And Weirdest Store-Bought Comics & Games Costumes For Halloween 2012

Halloween is upon us, and as far as I’m concerned that means one thing above all others: Costumes! Admittedly, we here at ComicsAlliance are pretty obsessed with costumes in general, but this is the one time of year where the whole world gets into the act. And as a result, it’s also the one time where you can actually just stroll into your local department store and walk out with a superhero costume!

Of course, that doesn’t always work out for the best. That’s why it is time once again to sift through all the horrors that store-bought costumes have to offer as I break down the worst and weirdest! And as you can already tell, it involves Sexy V For Vendetta.

First up, let’s have a look at Dark Knight Rises Batman:

I know that there was a pretty mixed reaction to The Dark Knight Rises, but I think one thing we can all agree on is that it would’ve been at least one hundred times better if Bruce Wayne had returned at the end of the movie looking exactly like this. Just busting in on Bane in a flimsy nylon jumpsuit that someone has drawn abs on with a silver sharpie. “I just climbed out of a prison hole in another country,” growls Christian Bale. “This was all they had left at the store.”

Sonic the Hedgehog:

All right, let’s just get this out of the way right now: No one has ever bought this costume to wear it to a party, or to go trick-or-treating. There is only one reason that this costume is ever purchased, usually three or four at a time because they tend to disintegrate when you throw them into the washing machine for the cleaning they so desperately need.

It is important that we as a society acknowledge this, and the slight but horrifyingly knowing smile of the guy wearing it in the picture. Only then can we all truly move on.

Sexy V For Vendetta:

That sound you just heard was Alan Moore calling down a plague of chilblains and night terrors on the DC/Vertigo licensing department.

To be honest, though, I’m not really all that surprised at this point that Sexy V For Vendetta is a thing that exists. I mean, I’ve seen Sexy Elmo, and once that’s out there, I guess all options are on the table. What’s surprising is that this is a costume that comes with the knives, the hat and the cape, but does not include the mask. Dude. Costume industry. The mask is basically that guy’s entire deal. This is even worse than a Superman costume that’s just a blue shirt and a red marker.

Sexy Candyland:

And now, a sexy costume based on a board game for five-year-olds.

It’s an election year, right? Well from this point on, the only issue I care about as a voter is which candidate has promised to keep track of who purchases the “Sexy Candyland” costume and put them into some kind of national registry. Seriously, this thing looks like it should come free with the purchase of a windowless van.

Cute socks, though.

Axe Cop:

Okay, here‘s one that actually surprised me, and not in a creepy way: An actual, officially licensed, store-bought Axe Cop costume. Then again, I’m not sure why it’s so surprising — it is, after all, a costume that can be made by throwing together some stuff they had laying around the costume warehouse anyway. Still, pretty awesome.

But not quite awesome enough. That’s why I firmly believe that everyone needs to buy this costume. Axe Cop needs to knock Sex Dracula and Kitty Cat right out of the top ten to become one of this year’s best-selling costumes. That way, they’ll be forced to expand the line, giving us ready-to-go costumes for Wexter the T-Rex With Robot Machine Gun Arms, Avocado Soldier and, of course, Sexy The Best Fairy Ever.

Magneto:

“I told you, Charles. The future belongs to the boot-cut. Relaxed fit was never an option.”

The Joker:

According to the official description, this costume is meant to be a sexy version of the Joker for the ladies, and as the Internet’s Foremost Batmanologist, I’m going to go ahead and call shennanigans on that one. This thing is closer to Sexy Mallard Filmore than it is to Batman’s arch-nemesis.

Actually, now that I look at it, this could be a pretty passable version of Mej, the evil mirror universe version of Jem that comes to Earth every 90 days to wreak havoc on the lives of the Holograms. Unfortunately, that is a character that only exists in my surprisingly detailed fan-fiction, so… maybe not the best thing to keep in stock at fifty bucks a pop.

The Harleys Quinn:

Speaking of Batman villains, we have this little Whitman’s sampler of everyone’s favorite codependent henchwench. If you’ve been to one of the bigger comic book conventions in the past few years, you’ll know that there’s a more or less infinite number of variations on Harley Quinn’s costume, and the store-bought varieties have a few different options too. Above, we’ve got Original, Extra Crispy, Cool Ranch and Juggalo, and there are even a few more generic versions.

You know, I have to say that these are actually pretty solid. I may not be a huge fan of the Arkham Asylum/City redesigns, but these are pretty well-done versions of those costumes — especially by the usual standards, which can only be detected by an electron microscope. I’m particularly fond of the minidress, even if the collar looks a little too straitjackety for my tastes. Of course, for this particular character, that would tend to be a feature rather than a bug.

All in all, it’s a pretty good showing! Maybe this is where licensed costumes really turn things around!

Angry Birds Princess Leia:

Or maybe not. I don’t even know what to do with this thing.

As near as I can figure, this is part of a line of costumes mashing up Star Wars characters with a video game that you play on your phone, for reasons that are truly beyond my comprehension. Most of the time, they end up just looking like weird smocks with bad drawings of Stormtrooper helmets and probably Dash Rendar or whatever, but in this case, you actually get the whole utterly mystifying effect.

And really, that just illustrates the entire problem with licensed Star Wars costumes. You can get Star Wars Leia all day long, and Lord knows you can get more Return of the Jedi Slave Leias than you can shake a stick at, and apparently you can now get weird bird-head poncho Leia too, but you still can’t get Ass-Kickin’ Coked Up Empire Leia. And isn’t that the one that’s worth having?

So yeah, it’s a pretty dire crop this year, Cocktail Party Harley Quinn notwithstanding. But which costume takes the cake for the absolute worst in the world of superheroes? That would be this guy:

Super Sperm

This might actually be the best Halloween costume I’ve seen all year, if only because it is truly terrifying on a haunting, unnerving level. It exists in defiance of the laws of God and Man. It cannot be understood without going mad, its hideous angles too disturbing to contemplate.

I have so many questions about what could possess someone to actually design this, produce it, and then offer it to other human beings in exchange for money, but there’s really only one that’s important, and it will likely haunt me until my dying day:

Why does the sperm in the logo have teeth?

Clearly, we all need something to cleanse the palate after that thing, so I leave you with what is probably the year’s best costume: DOGOSAURUS.

There is no reason why this should be limited to Halloween. If you don’t think your dog could benefit from having a thagomizer all day, every day, then you and I will never understand each other.

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